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Student discounts you can get on holiday travel and at tourist destinations

Loknath Das

Book flights and hotels in advance, travel in the shoulder season and take the DIY approach. We are all familiar with such travel tips to keep our vacation budgets under control. However, there’s more money to be saved during family holidays if you have a school or college-going child. You can grab student discounts on entry fees to heritage sites and airfare. Then there are additional benefits like special travel cards that are designed exclusively for students. These discounts should not be confused with concessions that are offered to children in general….

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RBI to set up panel on development of housing finance securitisation market

Loknath Das

The Reserve Bank of India, on Thursday, announced that it will soon set up a committee to assess the state of housing finance securitisation market in the country. The move is aimed at bringing in standardisation of asset securitisation practices to enable better management of credit and liquidity risks. The committee, which will be announced soon, will also study the best international practices, and lessons learnt from the global financial financial crisis. It will propose measures to further develop these markets in India by identifying critical steps required, such as…

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Travel Photographer Marisa Hampe Reflects On Her Favorite Photos

Loknath Das

Photographer Marisa Hampe posts beautiful travel images from around the world on her Instagram, but unlike other popular accounts, her photos are dark and daring rather than the sweet and sunny photos that often crowd our feeds. Also instead of checking off popular locales, the German content creator seeks our remote locations frequently scaling mountains and cliffs to get an unobstructed view from the top. I spoke to Hampe about some of her most memorable photos to date and how she got her start in the business. Marisa HampeMARISA HAMPE How did you get…

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Small finance banks start on a strong wicket: ICRA

Loknath Das

Mumbai: Rating agency ICRANSE 3.23 % expects small finance banks (SFBs) to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 25% to 30% led by diversified loan growth, deposit mobilisation, improving asset quality and better return on equity. The rating agency estimates that SFBs would require external capital of Rs. 4,000-6,000 crore till FY2023 for meeting the growth requirements, part of which will come through IPOs. ICRA estimates that SFBs have reported an annualised growth of 33% in the assets under management (AUM) in 9M FY2019 to Rs. 64,325 crore. These banks have been able…

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Why businesses depend on this man’s technology

Loknath Das

The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles different business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Jeff Lawson, co-founder and chief executive of US technology company Twilio. Jeff Lawson was all set to secure investment in his new start-up Twilio when suddenly people thought the world might be collapsing. Back on Monday, 15 September 2008, Jeff and his two co-founders walked into a meeting with potential investors in Silicon Valley. Getting the funding was supposed to be “almost a formality”, remembers Jeff, who was 31 at the…

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‘Hidden city’ travel: why airlines are cracking down on a discount trick

Loknath Das

A Lufthansa flight lands in Munich. The airline says a single case of ‘hidden city’ travel cost them more than €2,000. Photograph: Lukas Barth/EPA Airlines are cracking down on a ticketing loophole that can knock thousands of pounds off the cost of travel – but the fight back is only giving more publicity to the advantages of “hidden city” travel. At its most simplistic, hidden city ticketing is when a passenger purchases a ticket to less popular and thus cheaper destination that happens to be routed through a more popular, and thus…

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How to save money on travel (including bucket list destinations)

Loknath Das

Whether it’s written down in the back of your agenda, in a note on your phone or filed away in a mental cabinet to be called on by daydreams when work and life get too hectic, we all have a bucket list of places we’d love to go. Unfortunately for many of us, that’s exactly where these destinations stay — on a list that never gets checked off. Pricey flights and hotels make jet-setting to far off, exotic locales difficult. But if you know how to go about booking them, you…

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Parliamentary panel on finance seeks inquiry commission into IL&FS crisis

Loknath Das

The government had re-constituted the IL&FS board after the crisis surfaced. The parliamentary standing committee on finance has asked the government to set up a high-level inquiry commission to identify the reasons behind the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) default crisis. ET has reliably gathered that the panel, which will table its report in the matter on Wednesday, has specifically sought an investigation into the role of credit rating agencies (CRAs) and Life Insurance Corporation, IL&FS’ largest institutional stakeholder. The committee members met on Monday, and are said to have unanimously…

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Train 18: Here’s how much it will cost you to travel on India’s fastest train

Loknath Das

Train 18 will start its services soon and along with it, will herald a new generation of Indian trains. The much talked about Train 18 is expected to start services shortly after the Budget session.  But how much will a passenger have to shell out to travel on the indigenously-built fastest train in India? According to reports, Train 18 fares are likely to cost you 40-50 percent more than the Shatabdi Express. As mentioned in agency reports, the Executive Class fare is likely to cost around Rs 2,800-Rs 2,900, while…

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The application of space technology to solving problems on earth

Loknath Das

Fitness trackers, satellite navigation and bathers which let you swim faster all owe their origins to the space program. NASA technology specialist Dr Christyl Johnson says there are many positive spinoffs from an investment in space. With Australia’s new space agency we also have an opportunity to get on board the mission to Mars. Recorded 24 July 2018 Hybrid World Adelaide Conference Speaker Dr Christyl Johnson Deputy Director Technology and Research Investments Goddard Space Flight Centre. [“source=abc.net.au”]

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